AWWA JAW62677

Considerable interest exists among water supply professionals in how well public health protections are generated by the federal drinking water regulatory program as administered under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) Safe Drinking Water Act. This interest is heightened because of Office of Management and Budget pressure on federal agencies to develop common performance measures to track the progress of every regulatory program. It is challenging to devise clear, meaningful measures of progress for public sector entities such as the USEPA's federal drinking water regulatory program. Limitations are inherent in the relevant public health data, and it is difficult to attribute any observable trend in public health statistics to drinking water or other possible causal agents. In addition, performance measures that are easily countable may steer results in the wrong direction, whereas indicators that are more oriented toward the ultimate desired outcomes (e.g., better health) may be uncountable or not easily interpreted. This article offers a useful perspective on performance indicators and recommends ideas for how such indicators might be applied to the drinking water regulatory program for defining the monitoring and related data collection requirements. Includes 8 references, figure.